Choose by use case first. Account information (AIS) for aggregation, lending, or affordability decisions is a different shortlist from payment initiation (PIS) or Variable Recurring Payments (VRP). Once the use case is set, check coverage of the banks you actually need — the CMA9 are universal across major UK aggregators, but smaller building societies and neobanks vary. Then compare on pricing, sandbox quality, AISP/PISP licence reliance, and developer experience (SDKs, docs, support, and time-to-first-call).

Common UK shortlists: pay-by-bank checkout — TrueLayer, Yapily, GoCardless, Tink. Account aggregation and lending decisions — Plaid, Tink, TrueLayer, Moneyhub. Variable Recurring Payments — TrueLayer, Yapily, GoCardless. Multi-region (UK plus EU plus US) from one integration — Tink, Plaid, Salt Edge. Enterprise PFM and pensions data — Moneyhub. White-label infrastructure (no consumer UI) — Yapily.

A practical workflow: (1) write down your use case and the must-have banks; (2) shortlist 2–3 providers; (3) sign up to their sandboxes and run real flows; (4) get pricing for your projected volume in 12 months, not just today; (5) confirm their FCA AISP/PISP licence covers your model so you do not need your own. The Open Banking Tracker provider directory plus the best-open-banking-apis-uk and do-i-need-license-to-use-open-banking-apis answers cover the steps in detail.

For a side-by-side comparison with UK bank counts, AIS/PIS/VRP support, licence model, and pricing, see Open Banking APIs in the UK.